Freshman acts, earns Eagle Scout ranking

Thurman+smiles.+

Natalie Morel

Thurman smiles.

Bane Thurman is passionate about many things in and out of school. He helps out his community and is in Revere Players as a way to set himself up for an acting career in his future. He puts in the time and dedication he needs to. 

Freshman Bane Thurman partakes in quite a few activities at Revere High School. He had a role in Revere High School’s fall play and now has a role in the musical. He was also on the swim team and, outside of school he has worked his way up to being an Eagle Scout. He did this by doing community service, mostly helping dogs in shelters. 

Thurman said he joined Revere Players because he hopes to become an actor after he graduates high school. He thought that trying out for the play and musical would be a good start. 

“I’d really like to star in big movies and stuff. That has a very nice appeal to me, and I thought Players was a great way to start doing that,” Thurman said. 

Thurman said he looks up to actors like Ryan Reynolds, Dwane Johnson and Gal Gadot. He said they have come so far in their acting journey and he hopes to be like them. 

“They’re all very hard working people, and it’s just taken a very long time for them to get the amazing success they have today, and I’d like to one day have that same success,” Thurman said. 

Thurman played the role of Jack Youngwood in the fall play, Radium Girls. He explained what the role was. 

“The part that I had in the play was the role of Jack Youngwood, a very eccentric reporter in the 1920s and he, along with another reporter, Nancy James Harlin, was covering the story of the Radium Girls . . . they were the sort of comedic part of the show to break it up because it is a very serious story,” Thurman said. 

Thurman said he loved playing the character because he was a lot alike him. 

“It was very fun, and it fit me because I like public speaking and Jack Youngwood is very expressive,” Thurman said. 

In Grease, the spring musical, Thurman plays Eugene Florczyk. Thurman said he is very excited about the dancing scenes and how they are going to be executed. 

I’m looking forward to the set design and how we’re going to do the dance numbers. I think that’s going to be very interesting to do. I’m very interested to see how Grease Lightning pans out,” Thurman said. 

Annabelle Steiner, a freshman on the Revere Players tech team, spoke about Thurman as an actor. 

“He has a really good stage presence. He’s really mature . . . he’s always trying his best, and I look forward to watching him in the musical,” Steiner said. 

When Thurman is not acting, singing or dancing, he is helping out his community through Boy Scouts. He has worked his way up to becoming an Eagle Scout, which is the highest a person can go in Boy Scouts. He explained one of the actions he had to do to get this rank. 

“You have to earn merit badges along the way . . . They’re usually a bunch of broad topics such as cooking and first aid. But there are also merit badges that are sort of exploratory. There was one I did that was like dog care, because I love dogs, and there was another one that you had to do that covered a bunch of dog breeds, different ways to take care of dogs and how to train them,” Thurman said. 

Thurman also needed a letter of recommendation, so he asked one of his middle school teachers, Joan Lyon, who now also works at the high school and teaches life skills classes. Lyon explained some of the things she put into the letter. 

“He was an outstanding student, he was always prepared, he was friendly, he always had a smile on his face and was willing to help others,” Lyon said. 

Along with these two tasks, he also had to do a big final project. He talked about why he had to do this project. 

“Being an Eagle Scout is all about leadership, and a project like this is supposed to show how good you are at being a leader,” Thurman said. 

Thurman says that he wanted his project to not only help out his community but be something that he really cared about. 

“Since I love dogs and wanted to do something I’m passionate for, I decided to make sixteen kuranda beds along with sixteen blankets I sewed to correspond with those,” Thurman said. 

The kuranda beds are raised cot-like beds for the dogs to use. Thurman talked about how much work went into his project. He explained everything he did to prepare and create the beds and blankets for the dogs. 

“All in all, the project probably took over a hundred hours. You had to do a bunch of paperwork where you would write down the supplies you’re going to get, how much they were, how you’re going to lead everybody. . . . Doing this project, I had some help from family friends and it probably took us about seven hours to assemble all the beds, and it probably took us about that same amount of time to do the blankets as well,” Thurman said. 

Thurman spoke about the outcome of his project and how happy he was to have helped the dogs in need. 

“Overall, it was a very rewarding process, and I was very satisfied when I just turned in all the kuranda beds to the shelter. Seeing all the dogs use them, it really touched my heart because it was mostly a shelter for pit bulls and dogs that were returned a bunch during COVID. It made me feel very good to benefit all those dogs,” Thurman said. 

Thurman said that becoming an Eagle Scout is a very respected thing because so much work goes into it and very few Boy Scouts ever get that far. 

“Only 5% of scouts get Eagle Scout, so it’s a very prestigious thing to get,” Thurman said. 

Thurman will perform in Grease later this year and continues to help out his community. Although he participates in a lot of activities, he continues to work hard on his acting career.